Now, in the town of S, Mr. N. awoke one morning to a very strange fate. His house was gone. He was still under the blankets, the top quilt made by his aunt, showing, ironically, a town with houses and the house in the middle, along the main route, looked very much like his, but in reality, his house was quite gone. He nudged his wife. “Dear,” he said, “I think we’ve been robbed.”
“—um—” she murmured, then she opened those great, brown eyes of hers and said, “What happened?!” She pulled the covers up. They looked around. But, yes, it was true, their house was definitely—gone.
“Gone,” said little Enrique Smith who lived next door and he pointed this way and that. “Gone. Your house is gone.”
The day came on like a drunken brat. The police came and Mr. N. and his wife were still in the basement in their bed and in their pajamas beneath the blankets. Some neighbors had brought over some milk, bowls and Rice Krispies®. The police examined the area. “Can you describe the house?”
Mr. N. nodded. “One story, one and a half baths, two bedrooms. It answers to the name of ‘Our Place’.”
The police officer pushed his hat back and pondered the report he was filling out. “This is going to sound awfully strange,” he said. He sighed, looked about. “Oh, well,” he said, “at least it’s a nice day for something like this to happen. What if it had been raining?”
“True,” said Mr. N., “but we would like our house back.”
The policeman, rather overweight and for some incomprehensible reason, somewhat put out about all this, said, “Well, we’ll just have to look for it—” he looked around. “I guess...”
Via the cellar steps, another officer came into the basement. “No reports of any strange noises, like helicopters or—” and he looked down, obviously embarrassed, “‘flying saucers.’ Some neighbors were up all night and didn’t see anything unusual, but some heard—” and he looked down again, still obviously very embarrassed, “some—uh—well—”
“Well,” said the other policeman, striking a pose of ‘no nonsense here,’ “let’s get on with it.”
“Well,” said the second policeman, “some reported hearing a heavy thudding and stomping at about three a.m., like something big walking...”
“Something big, as in a house walking?” asked the first officer.
The other man hunched his shoulders a bit and shifted his weight. “Uh—um, yes, yes—um—yes.”
The first policeman cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, “ah—yes, well, are there any other conclusions to draw here?”
“Big indentations in the ground, heading south-southeast, toward the forest.”
“Houseprints?” the first policeman grimaced at the word.
“Maybe a trail.”
Out of acute discomfort, the policeman said nothing about what it was they had to do. As they left the basement, neighbors were setting up an umbrella tent in the basement bedroom so that at least Mr. N. and his wife had privacy to get up and get dressed. In a few minutes, they accompanied the two officers.
“We really don’t know how this could have happened,” said Mrs. N., once they were in the police car. “Goodness knows what would have happened if we were sleeping on the main floor instead of in the basement bedroom. I guess we chose a good time to turn the upper bedroom into a study.”
The policeman tried to be as indifferent about this as possible. “What color was the house when you last saw it?”
“Brown with fading yellow trim. Some bricks were gone from the front porch and the roof needed repair.”
“Also,” said Mrs. N., “we needed a new refrigerator and the toilet was cracked and leaking—”
“Sort of in disrepair,” said Mr. N., “but we were getting ready to get a loan to fix it up.”
The police officers didn’t say anything, but they followed the trail of cracked roadway, an occasional crushed car, a broken fire hydrant fountaining, several toppled trees, broken power lines and a ransacked hardware store.
“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. N., “I’m afraid our house did a lot of damage.”
Mr. N. looked unhappy. “I wonder if this is covered by insurance.”
“I wonder if all the china in the kitchen is broken,” said Mrs. N. “Certainly the refrigerator is a mess by now.”
For a few minutes, as they all drove the streets in the general direction of the trail, no one said anything. Finally, the trail had to be followed by foot. They quietly walked and before long, found the house nestled in the forest. As they approached, they heard a heavy, booming voice, “Leave me alone! Go home!”
Mr. N. called back, “Uh—but we are home—you are our home.”
Pause. “Go home to another home.”
“You’re the only home we have,” said Mr. N.
“Not anymore,” boomed the voice.
“Would you mind telling us what we did?” asked Mrs. N.
Pause. “It’s what you didn’t do. Ants in my foundation and you knew about them for the last three years. And my plumbing was bad and rotting my infrastructure. The roof leaked and I was falling apart. It was a matter of self-preservation.”
“But—” said Mr. N., spreading his hands, “didn’t you hear me the other night? I sat right in the kitchen talking about getting a loan to take care of all of that.”
“You said that before.”
“Well, this time I meant it.”
“You said that before, too.”
“Won’t you give us another try?” asked Mrs. N. “Please?”
“No!” said the house. Somewhere a door slammed.
The police scratched their heads. “We don’t know what to do. This isn’t covered in our procedures. We can deal with abusive situations, and runaway children—” and he puffed out his cheeks and blew out slowly, “but we’ve never had to deal with an abused house.”
“Well,” said Mrs. N. wringing her hands, “it wasn’t conscious abuse.”
“Abuse is abuse,” rumbled the house. A window slammed.
“But—but—but,” said Mr. N. “We own you. You’re ours.”
“Not anymore.”
“Look,” said the first police officer, “what are you going to do here? Without care, you’re simply going to fall apart that much faster.”
“Not as fast as I would with their help—or non-help as the case may be.”
Mrs. N. pleaded. “Oh, won’t you reconsider? Don’t you have any good memories? Didn’t we treat you better than the last occupants?”
A long pause. “No.”
The four of them sat on a log and considered what to do. And after a while, they came to the conclusion that they didn’t know what to do. “We certainly can’t force it back,” said the first officer. “It might splinter. Almost your best bet would be to try to bring new materials here as a good will measure.”
Mr. N. stood up, cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled, “How about that? How about if we bring all the materials here and repair you now as an act of good faith?”
A long, long pause. “No. Because if you leave, I’ll have to go through this all over again. No.” Another window slammed shut.
Mrs. N. called, “Can we come in and at least get some personal items? Clothes? Jewelry?”
After a minute, the front door opened and the house virtually vomited clothing, articles, razors, soap, shoes, jewelry. Mr. and Mrs. N. were buried, and wham the door slammed shut.
For the next few minutes, they gathered up their personal belongings and stood looking at the house.
“What about our cat, Fluffy? Have you seen her?” called Mrs. N.
“She stays with me. At least she appreciated my warm rooms and wide windowsills. Now, beat it!” yelled the house. A frying pan sailed through the air. The police and Mr. and Mrs. N. jumped back toward the police car.
“Well,” said Mr. N., “maybe what we can do is put a roof over the basement. We’ll have to do that; I don’t know what else to do.”
The police officers looked to each other. “We don’t either. We’re going to have to have a new category for investigation: ‘Abandonment of Owners by House.’ And how we investigate this is going to be interesting indeed. What if the house wants to sue?”
From the forest, the house yelled, “I’m considering it!”
Mrs. N. said, “I didn’t know it had such good hearing.”
“Now you know!” yelled the house. A coffee pot came flying through the air; chink, it landed nearby.
“Well,” said the officer, taking his hat off and wearily massaging his forehead, “the one saving aspect of all of this is—thank God this doesn’t happen—”
At that point, they all heard a great commotion. Turning, they saw the county court house striding down the street, followed by a frantic, yelling crowd of judges and lawyers.
Mr. and Mrs. N. and the police stepped aside to let it all go by. The police sighed. Mr. and Mrs. N. looked at their hands. After a few minutes, they resumed walking, saying not a word.
When they finally got back to the cellar of Mr. and Mrs. N. the police drove off and Mr. and Mrs. N. looked at the cellar with the tent. The neighbors had set up a table and a portable gas stove. After a dinner of stew, Mr. and Mrs. N. soon retired to bed. And as Mr. N. began to finally doze and drift off to sleep, Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. He and his wife sat bolt upright. “What is that?” asked Mrs. N., terrified. The ground shook around them. They pulled aside the flap of the tent, to see their house standing nearby in the twilight. Fluffy came sailing through the air and landed on a nearby pile of clothes.
Skree! it screeched and dashed to hide beneath a nearby dresser.
“You can have your damn cat back,” boomed the house. “Just like you to forget to put kitty litter out for her. Shit all over the closet floor! What a mess!”
And with that, thud, thud, thud, thud, the house stomped off into the night.